OS X Lion developer preview announced (and some new features)

A multitouch trackpad is great for casual stuff like web, email. And I love gestures and I wished there was a way to integrate them in my workflow. However, there is no way a multitouch trackpad is faster, more efficient or easier for gaming, graphic design, keynote/powerpoint design, imovie heavy editing, business, etc.

I do graphic design part-time, and the few times I've been forced to work on my macbook's trackpad, I've slowed down at least 50% or more on apps like Illustrator and Photoshop. It seems to me that trackpads are inferior to a mouse when it comes to pro/creative work or activities that require continuous object dragging, clicking and accuracy.

So I see the multitouch trackpad as an alternative not a replacement, and I hope there is more innovation in this area, perhaps a better magic mouse.

Surely this statement needs qualifiers or some citation. To my knowledge, the majority sales of Apple machines are portables that come with a multitouch trackpad, and I don't believe that the majority of those users operate them using mice or styluses. I could be wrong, but I feel like you're operating under some heavy subjectivity.

Worthless anecdote: I'm doing some consulting work for a tech startup. The core team had a meeting that I was asked to attend; I think it was eight people total. We all sat around a large meeting table. I watched with amazement as all of us took out various vintages and sizes of Apple laptops, save for a single Dell (there was much laughing and ribbing; although, to that person's credit, he had blown away Windows and was running some flavor of Linux). And then everyone -- every last person -- took out a mouse. Not one person was using the trackpad. The people ranged from alpha-geek programmers, to sales people, and a couple finance/business folks.

Pretty much the only time I don't take out my travel mouse is when I'm in coach and don't have the room.

EDIT: To be clear, I realize the value of gestures and think the trackpad is a cool device that Apple makes better use of than pretty much any other hardware company. My concern all along has been that OS X continue to provide equally for trackpad and mouse users alike.

Another worthless anecdote: I was at a conference this past week and saw more than three dozen people with Mac laptops. All but one of those had a laptop with a multitouch trackpad, and not a single one used a travel mouse.

Seriously people: It's not as if you plug in your mouse and the OS pops up a dialog saying "OMGWTFBBQ no pointer for yuo!"

It does seem make a trackpad easier to use when it is the size of the ones on Apple's laptops; it makes a big difference when you never have to move your finger from the trackpad (as opposed to lifting it up because you're moving the pointer from one side of the screen to the other and run out of room on the trackpad, like mousing of yesteryear). It's not nearly as easy on many PC laptops (particularly the ThinkPad I used for work), unless you give up fine precision by turning the sensitivity way up. I always used a mouse whenever possible, but I could not understand why so many of my coworkers used their trackpads.

At the very least, Apple's trackpads help to remove the "lifting" barrier, which makes it a little better for everyday use.

My $0.02: here's one thing a mouse is objectively best for, and that's gaming. Everything else can be done better, faster, and in less desk space with another type of pointing device; styluses for drawing, trackballs for specialized "pro-" apps that need pixel-perfect clicking accuracy, multitouch trackpad for everything else.

Well, a mouse has another advantage to a trackpad, and that's ergonomics. A wireless mouse can be place anywhere you chose, at will, as long as it's flat surface, and also enables you to move one's wrist at will and keep it almost perfectly straight, and at any angle to your body as you limbs provide. The trackpad on a laptop either requires one to have the laptop at a certain distance from oneself, or bending the wrist in an unnatural position. It's also likely that one has a less comfortable wrist support with the trackpad. Now, I'm sure that several people will reply and say that they don't experience any problems with trackpads but it's really a less flexible position, ergonomics wise than a mouse.

A multitouch trackpad is great for casual stuff like web, email. And I love gestures and I wished there was a way to integrate them in my workflow. However, there is no way a multitouch trackpad is faster, more efficient or easier for gaming, graphic design, keynote/powerpoint design, imovie heavy editing, business, etc.

I do graphic design part-time, and the few times I've been forced to work on my macbook's trackpad, I've slowed down at least 50% or more on apps like Illustrator and Photoshop. It seems to me that trackpads are inferior to a mouse when it comes to pro/creative work or activities that require continuous object dragging, clicking and accuracy.

So I see the multitouch trackpad as an alternative not a replacement, and I hope there is more innovation in this area, perhaps a better magic mouse.

This is my exact experience as well, and I whole heartedly agree. AutoCAD for Mac, for instance, has decent multitouch support, but it's definitely easier to use with a mouse. Same for most 3D apps.

My $0.02: here's one thing a mouse is objectively best for, and that's gaming. Everything else can be done better, faster, and in less desk space with another type of pointing device; styluses for drawing, trackballs for specialized "pro-" apps that need pixel-perfect clicking accuracy, multitouch trackpad for everything else.

Well, a mouse has another advantage to a trackpad, and that's ergonomics. A wireless mouse can be place anywhere you chose, at will, as long as it's flat surface, and also enables you to move one's wrist at will and keep it almost perfectly straight, and at any angle to your body as you limbs provide. The trackpad on a laptop either requires one to have the laptop at a certain distance from oneself, or bending the wrist in an unnatural position. It's also likely that one has a less comfortable wrist support with the trackpad. Now, I'm sure that several people will reply and say that they don't experience any problems with trackpads but it's really a less flexible position, ergonomics wise than a mouse.

Apple sells these. Can be used on both smooth and uneven surfaces of just about any surface.

As for ergonomics, the most ergonomic position to keep your hands while doing fine motor work is about 30-40 cm in front of you at elbow height when you sit in a relaxed position. Coincidently this is about where the keyboard is, so a multitouch trackpad near, or attached to the keyboard is pretty good in that regard. And that is exactly where trackpads on most laptops are.

Pointless greybearding. I recall when Apple elected not to include floppy drives in their computers, which generated similar cries of doom, gloom, and derision (including from me!). Now, looking back, you'd be hard pressed to find someone who thought their move wasn't a good idea, if not downright visionary for the time.

Every laptop in the last couple years sold by Apple has a multitouch trackpad included, as for the rest: within a couple days of using multi-touch gestures in Lion, you'll realize it's a really *nice* and natural way to interact with the OS and wind up ordering a magic trackpad to replace the much used and much loved Microsoft Trackball Explorer that's been sitting on your desk for six years.

Yah because moving entire components of the OS from a pointer-based workflow to gesture-based workflow carries a strong parallel with the inclusion or exclusion of floppy drives (a physical storage medium not a means of interacting with the OS), which at the time had equally good alternatives that were already familiar to a majority of users.

So to be clear, you're basing your argument on a capability that is available to a demographic (people who have bought Mac laptops over the last 18-24 months) which probably does not amount to even 10% of the Mac user base? Maybe you need to revisit the concept of designing an OS that meets the expectations of a large majority of a user base, not a minority that amounts to "early adopters" for a new kind of UI interaction. I'm not against gestures in general but the UI should not default to a design that caters to gesture-driven devices like phones or tablets until there is way more habit built up on the part of the entire user base and there are more peripherals out there (like gesture-sensitive wacom tablets and mice and trackpads other than Apple's for a start).

Meantime you have crazy luddites like me who would rather use one pointing and interaction device all day than two, be it a mouse for productivity or general computing, or a tablet and stylus for creative work. If I could get the kind of precision out of a gesture pad that I can from a Wacom tablet, or get a tablet that supports finger gestures (maybe that's coming, I don't know) then it wouldn't be as big a deal to have the OS default this way. But in either case, the statistics I'm guessing are iron-clad that Apple isn't anywhere CLOSE to having 51% of its OS X users using gestures as the primary means of interacting with the OS or other apps.

There are millions of Mac users who have years or even decades (I'm one of the latter - Mr. Graymouse) of ingrained mouse and stylus usage. Either the transition is done gradual enough and in a way that doesn't put their needs second, or it's a bad design decision IMO. I have an iPad and so I see some of the benefits of interacting this way with devices, but my Mac isn't a mobile device (where such interaction is a necessity to keep it clean and simple / free of peripherals). 1) LCDs are not touch-sensitive and even if they were I wouldn't use it because I don't want to smear finger prints all over the viewport I use to gauge detail, color and text; 2) Don't fix it if it isn't broken. My wireless laser mouse works great and better than any Apple makes and doesn't slow me down one bit. I don't need my Mac to behave like an iPad just because of the "wow factor". I'm 100% OK with Apple actually innovating WRT to the Finder and making it easier to organize and navigate and launch apps but all this stuff they're adding in doesn't really do that.

If I install 50 apps on my machine the last thing I want to do is swipe through 3-5 screens of icons to find one and launch it. Again, works great on hand-held device and is necessity on hand-held device. Is not a necessity on a desktop or under desk platform. Same with swipe buttons and all the rest.

FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION. None of these gesture-driven UI things solve real problems on the DESKTOP, IMHO. Nice to look at but smacks of typical "wow factor upgrade feature" for Apple.

The second Lion is released, all Apple computers will ship with a trackpad by default.

Nail me down on this if you like.

Again, the percentages. What about the other... 92% of Mac users who will already have a Mac at that time, not have gesture support, and not have any real desire to run right out and drop $2000-$3000 on a new computer because "it now comes with gesture support". And that frickin mouse does NOT qualify IMO. I know a lot of people who do not find the Magic mouse intuitive at all and would much rather use a track-pad, which you WILL have to pay extra for. Bottom line: most people keep their Macs for 2-4 years or longer; that is who the OS should cater too.

Over time, as older machines are phased out and everyone has a gesture pad, then you can start doing this stuff.

Yah because moving entire components of the OS from a pointer-based workflow to gesture-based workflow carries a strong parallel with the inclusion or exclusion of floppy drives (a physical storage medium not a means of interacting with the OS), which at the time had equally good alternatives that were already familiar to a majority of users. :roll eyes:

I'd say that a pretty damn decent majority of Apple users are familiar with touch and gesture based interaction by virtue of their interaction with iOS and/or Android devices.

Quote:

So to be clear, you're basing your argument on a capability that is available to a demographic (people who have bought Mac laptops over the last 18-24 months) which probably does not amount to even 10% of the Mac user base? Maybe you need to revisit the concept of designing an OS that meets the expectations of a large majority of a user base, not a minority that amounts to "early adopters" for a new kind of UI interaction. I'm not against gestures in general but the UI should not default to a design that caters to gesture-driven devices like phones or tablets until there is way more habit built up on the part of the entire user base and there are more peripherals out there (like gesture-sensitive wacom tablets and mice and trackpads other than Apple's for a start).

I'd be honestly surprised that folks with gesture-capable devices is nearly as low as 10%. Apple has always designed for where they want users to be, and not necessarily where they are now.

Quote:

There are millions of Mac users who have years or even decades (I'm one of the latter - Mr. Graymouse) of ingrained mouse and stylus usage. Either the transition is done gradual enough and in a way that doesn't put their needs second, or it's a bad design decision IMO. I have an iPad and so I see some of the benefits of interacting this way with devices, but my Mac isn't a mobile device (where such interaction is a necessity to keep it clean and simple / free of peripherals). 1) LCDs are not touch-sensitive and even if they were I wouldn't use it because I don't want to smear finger prints all over the viewport I use to gauge detail, color and text; 2) Don't fix it if it isn't broken. My wireless laser mouse works great and better than any Apple makes and doesn't slow me down one bit. I don't need my Mac to behave like an iPad just because of the "wow factor". I'm 100% OK with Apple actually innovating WRT to the Finder and making it easier to organize and navigate and launch apps but all this stuff they're adding in doesn't really do that.

If I install 50 apps on my machine the last thing I want to do is swipe through 3-5 screens of icons to find one and launch it. Again, works great on hand-held device and is necessity on hand-held device. Is not a necessity on a desktop or under desk platform. Same with swipe buttons and all the rest.

FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION. None of these gesture-driven UI things solve real problems on the DESKTOP, IMHO. Nice to look at but smacks of typical "wow factor upgrade feature" for Apple.

I'm curious - which features of Lion that we've heard about require you to have a multitouch based device in order to use them? From what I've seen, everything is either (a) an entirely new interaction pattern, or (b) has a mouse and/or keyboard way of accomplishing the same goal.

As for ergonomics, the most ergonomic position to keep your hands while doing fine motor work is about 30-40 cm in front of you at elbow height when you sit in a relaxed position. Coincidently this is about where the keyboard is, so a multitouch trackpad near, or attached to the keyboard is pretty good in that regard. And that is exactly where trackpads on most laptops are.

That position only ergonomic if you can keep your wrists more or less straight, and when using the trackpad, that's very often not the case. I also feel that I use only smaller muscles more when using the trackpad, and straining them more, as opposed to when using a mouse, where I use a combination of larger and smaller muscles. The magic trackpad can perhaps solve some of the issues with fixed trackpads though. I haven't tried one in person, but it might very well be more usable than the normal trackpad for Adobe apps and other apps where I typically much prefer using a mouse.

The second Lion is released, all Apple computers will ship with a trackpad by default.

Nail me down on this if you like.

Again, the percentages. What about the other... 92% of Mac users who will already have a Mac at that time, not have gesture support, and not have any real desire to run right out and drop $2000-$3000 on a new computer because "it now comes with gesture support". And that frickin mouse does NOT qualify IMO. I know a lot of people who do not find the Magic mouse intuitive at all and would much rather use a track-pad, which you WILL have to pay extra for. Bottom line: most people keep their Macs for 2-4 years or longer; that is who the OS should cater too.

Those people are on 10.4, or on 10.5, or on whatever OS their Mac came with.

NOBODY (that doesn't hang on internet forums) knows which version they're on. If you're lucky and need to know (because they're asking you whether the iPod they want to buy will work), they'll know the animal ("Leopard" or "Tiger").

Most people never upgrade their machines EVER. That's been the case for decades.

The second Lion is released, all Apple computers will ship with a trackpad by default.

Nail me down on this if you like.

What about the Mac mini? BYOKDM

Throw a Magic Trackpad in with every copy of Lion!

alexr wrote:

Guys, guys! It works fine without the gestures. Seriously. You can map things to mouse buttons and everything.

Yeah I don't get why people are so getting worked up about it, the trackpad stuff is comparable to the inertial scrolling and gestures that have already been there for a while now, it just makes the experience better for the majority of recent and new Mac buyers.

Of course there's the paranoia about iOS taking over and all but it's too soon for that. Or late cause we had something like Launchpad back in the System 7 days.

As for ergonomics, the most ergonomic position to keep your hands while doing fine motor work is about 30-40 cm in front of you at elbow height when you sit in a relaxed position. Coincidently this is about where the keyboard is, so a multitouch trackpad near, or attached to the keyboard is pretty good in that regard. And that is exactly where trackpads on most laptops are.

That position only ergonomic if you can keep your wrists more or less straight, and when using the trackpad, that's very often not the case. I also feel that I use only smaller muscles more when using the trackpad, and straining them more, as opposed to when using a mouse, where I use a combination of larger and smaller muscles. The magic trackpad can perhaps solve some of the issues with fixed trackpads though. I haven't tried one in person, but it might very well be more usable than the normal trackpad for Adobe apps and other apps where I typically much prefer using a mouse.

You got it only a bit wrong. There is nothing wrong with bending your wrist, in fact it is good as it will promote blood flow and movement. What is not good when bending ones wrist it keeping it in a static position—just as one does with a mouse.

The second Lion is released, all Apple computers will ship with a trackpad by default.

Nail me down on this if you like.

Again, the percentages. What about the other... 92% of Mac users who will already have a Mac at that time, not have gesture support, and not have any real desire to run right out and drop $2000-$3000 on a new computer because "it now comes with gesture support". And that frickin mouse does NOT qualify IMO. I know a lot of people who do not find the Magic mouse intuitive at all and would much rather use a track-pad, which you WILL have to pay extra for. Bottom line: most people keep their Macs for 2-4 years or longer; that is who the OS should cater too.

Over time, as older machines are phased out and everyone has a gesture pad, then you can start doing this stuff.

So they should avoid adding software features that exploit newer hardware because most people don't have the new hardware yet? That argument makes absolutely no sense. Isn't that the case with pretty much every new software feature ever introduced?

Why will "everyone" have gesture pads in the future if the software is never updated to take advantage of them?

So to be clear, you're basing your argument on a capability that is available to a demographic (people who have bought Mac laptops over the last 18-24 months) which probably does not amount to even 10% of the Mac user base?

Your math is horribly horribly wrong.

The first laptops to get the multi-touch trackpad was the Air in 2008, and all laptops went to the design by fall of that year, so its not 1.5 - 2 years, its fully 2.5 years now, and closer to 3 by the time Lion rolls around.

Laptops made up over 70% of all Macs sold last quarter. Two and a half years ago it was 60%. If you average that out, you're talking 65% of all Macs for 2.5 years. For that to equal 10% of the user base, the average person would have to own their computer for over 16 years - if your 10% figure is correct, the median aged Mac in the user base is a PowerBook Duo! And that's doing the calculation without factoring the growth of the Mac market at all - which it was, as Mac sales have just about doubled since the first multi-touch enabled laptops were introduced.

When you factor in market growth its clear that just laptops (not including magic trackpad sales) with multitouch are well over 30% of the installed base today, and probably closer to 40% by the time Lion comes out. But that doesn't matter because Lion doesn't run on all Macs - no PPC, and no Core Solo. You're probably looking at closer to 40-45% of the Macs that can run Lion on day one - and, since people who are OS upgraders are probably also hardware updaters, I wouldn't be surprised if, in the set of computers that will ever have Lion on them, over 50% will have multi-touch.

But honestly, that doesn't matter, because by the time that Lion's replacement rolls around in 2 years, 90% of the Lion installed base will have trackpads. That's the target apple is aiming at.

You're way, way off base with your perception of Apple's installed base.

Most people never upgrade their machines EVER. That's been the case for decades.

That's not what the OS X adoption rates suggest.In 3 months, Leopard lost a significant share in favor of Snow Leopard.

EDIT: it seems that the adoption of 10.6 has rapidly leveled off. I guess it depends of what you mean by "most people".

Have anything more recent? I'd be curious what the current usage rates are. That graph is nearly two years old!

I agree btw about people not upgrading their machines. I suspect, however, that if Lion is much easier to upgrade with that it might get faster adoption. Also a lot of people didn't upgrade to SL as fast due to some large driver incompatibilities along with the fact is was for users a fairly minor upgrade.

12... I don't think AirDrop is Bonjour... I think it's some kind of an ad-hoc WiFi protocol. Not sure to be honest.

I'm 90% sure it's built on top on Bonjour. Technically everything it does you could do with iChat. Effectively it's just providing a much simpler UI for it.

There's a little bit more to it than that, because it lets you share files between two computers that aren't connected to the same network. So it's probably Bonjour, combined with some automatic ad-hoc network configuration stuff.

12... I don't think AirDrop is Bonjour... I think it's some kind of an ad-hoc WiFi protocol. Not sure to be honest.

I'm 90% sure it's built on top on Bonjour. Technically everything it does you could do with iChat. Effectively it's just providing a much simpler UI for it.

There's a little bit more to it than that, because it lets you share files between two computers that aren't connected to the same network. So it's probably Bonjour, combined with some automatic ad-hoc network configuration stuff.

I'm thinking it's built with wifi direct but that's just a wild guess. TidBITS had a little blurb on it a while back:

Quote:

Lion’s AirDrop will let you exchange files between two Macs (and, one expects, iOS 5) using Wi-Fi. But it’s not a variant on Bonjour: the two Macs do not need to be connected to the same Wi-Fi base station or larger Wi-Fi network. Rather, they only need to be within Wi-Fi range of one another. AirDrop uses a peer-to-peer ad hoc connection, though one that’s instant to set up and secure. A Mac using AirDrop doesn’t drop a Wi-Fi network connection if it has one; it can communicate to another Mac and maintain its network connection, too. This requires newer hardware. I suspect nearly all machines shipped since 2007 or 2008 will have the right Wi-Fi gear, but Apple will need to provide more details as Lion’s release date gets closer.

AppleInsider says Apple made their own thing, also mentions the likely requirement of newer hardware.

Sure they do. Spaces is a swipe left or swipe right and the screen moves left or right. The number of fingers in the swipe may be arbitrary, but the direction of screen movement is complimentary. The visual clue (and animation is a visual clue) attaches to the gesture in an obvious way, which reinforces muscle memory. That visual clue will never reinforce the muscle memory of pushing a button..

But just as there is nothing intrinsic to the button location that the action will be a spatial spaces move, there is nothing to the gesture that indicates it is about spaces. In that way both are the same.

Its not true that there is nothing intrinsic to the gesture that its about Spaces within the Apple system of gestures. There is a pattern to the gestures that Apple uses - the more fingers, the higher level a function. 5 fingers is mission control, which is the highest level function on the OS. Next down is the 4 finger swipes which are all high level activities - Spaces, etc. Then 3 finger swipes are within a program dealing with windowing. 1 and 2 finger gestures actually interact with data in the widows. Its a very consistent, logical pattern - after closer thought I realize I was wrong above and it is not at all arbitrary.

Even if you had no idea what the gesture for spaces was, if you had played with the other gestures in Apple's logical system of gestures, educated guessing could get you to a 4 finger swipe much quicker than it would get you to the correct button on a programmable mouse. And if you had ever seen the animation before (on someone elses system or a video), you could probably guess the gesture on the first go.

There is no equivalent to this logical hierarchy with buttons. Even if one multi-button mouse manufacturer came up with a scheme to place the "one finger gesture" buttons at the front of the mouse and proceed in a logical order towards the "4 finger buttons" at the back, that would still just be one manufacturer. The chance of that standardizing across all mouse makers is nil. If, on the other hand a trackpad maker wanted to design a bigger/more ergonomic/smoother/clear/Product Red/whatever trackpad, the gesture scheme would remain the same and all the users learned behavior would transfer.

Quote:

You can say the visual clue of animation increases muscle memory but then the physical movement of my finger up or down does the same.

The difference is that both buttons and gestures have a physical movement that increases muscle memory. Gestures have much more varied, unique physical movements. What gestures have that buttons don't have is a synergy between the physical movement and the onscreen movement. And it is their very uniqueness that allows for the creation of unique onscreen visual reinforcements for each one in a way that could never be done with buttons.

I'm curious - which features of Lion that we've heard about require you to have a multitouch based device in order to use them? From what I've seen, everything is either (a) an entirely new interaction pattern, or (b) has a mouse and/or keyboard way of accomplishing the same goal.

None of them require gestures. I think the commotion is because some people want features they'd use. Whereas a lot of Lion features are for more casual users with laptops (and I suspect we'll see trackpads with new iMacs). About the only thing that's really gesture-centric might be app switching and space switching. But it's not like you have to use that method.

So a lot of the fear and loathing is more than a little overstated.

Don't get me wrong, I think track pads with gestures are overhyped for the reasons I outlined. But you can also access many of these features with function keys, key strokes, mouse buttons, or hot spots. At best one can complain there aren't more UI features for power users. But I think Snow Leopard was what brought a lot of benefits to power users with Automator expanded plus the revitalization of Services.

Complaining effectively that Lion adds features that primarily benefit Apple's main market seems silly. I think Apple really is setting up the Air to be the iPad+. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Apple is actually testing something like an Air that runs iPad software with a touch screen. (Whether they decide to release it is an other matter - the whole screen/keyboard issue is nontrivial to solve. Lots of others have tried with detachable screens or screens that collapse over the keyboard without much success.

There is no equivalent to this logical hierarchy with buttons. Even if one multi-button mouse manufacturer came up with a scheme to place the "one finger gesture" buttons at the front of the mouse and proceed in a logical order towards the "4 fing

Well except that Apple's choice of buttons tends to be icon stamped buttons where the function keys go. So we ought recall that buttons involve more that just mouse buttons. I'd add that most extra mouse buttons have a heirarchy that's pretty natural. So you have a forward/back button where your thumb naturally rests and then buttons above and below the scroll wheel. So I don't think it's at all accurate to say there is no hierarchy of buttons. The main difference is that this hierarchy is assigned function by the user whereas Apple has default uses (with fairly limited ability to change them)

I'd disagree the hierarchy you outline really aids learning though since I suspect most folks who use gestures like myself wasn't aware of such a scheme. It's just not intuitive but is something one has to learn. And honestly if you're having to memorize stuff you might as well just memorize the gesture rather than the scheme.

wrylachlan wrote:

The difference is that both buttons and gestures have a physical movement that increases muscle memory. Gestures have much more varied, unique physical movements. What gestures have that buttons don't have is a synergy between the physical movement and the onscreen movement. And it is their very uniqueness that allows for the creation of unique onscreen visual reinforcements for each one in a way that could never be done with buttons.

Perhaps. I'm pretty skeptical that in practice this amounts to much. I'd want to see usability testing on this to believe it matters as much as you think.

In any case it's moot since Apple allows both methods. My point is just that I think gestures have been really overhyped a lot.

12... I don't think AirDrop is Bonjour... I think it's some kind of an ad-hoc WiFi protocol. Not sure to be honest.

I'm 90% sure it's built on top on Bonjour. Technically everything it does you could do with iChat. Effectively it's just providing a much simpler UI for it.

There's a little bit more to it than that, because it lets you share files between two computers that aren't connected to the same network. So it's probably Bonjour, combined with some automatic ad-hoc network configuration stuff.

Interesting. I didn't know it did network traversing. Presumably they are using something like Back to My Mac for this. (Hopefully in a form that works considerably better - Apple's existing solution is arguably the worst on the market) I suspect this will be tied to those cloud services. I'd be quite interested in knowing how this gets configured and what limits Apple puts on it. (As well as how well it's been written - Apple just has been pretty inept at cloud services the past decade)

I'd say that a pretty damn decent majority of Apple users are familiar with touch and gesture based interaction by virtue of their interaction with iOS and/or Android devices.

Not particularly relevant IMO. What we're talking about is changing the way we use our computers to be more like how we use our phones and tablets, when doing so doesn't really solve any efficiency problems. Why do we need swipe-enabled app screens with loads of icons and other gesture-driven means of working with the file system and Finder buttons? What problems do those things solve? I'm saying, if you're asking me to put away my mouse, buy a trackpad for my apparently "horribly old" 3 year old Mac Pro, then explain to me what these things we're seeing in Apple's demos are going to make my work more efficient. Because I frankly I can't figure it out.

Again for my iPad this type of setup is great and a necessity to keep interactions clean and simple. For OS X this was never a problem. So, shifting the way a large chunk of the OS works (presumably because they're going to shift everything over that way with 10.8), and requiring for those of us how have not purchased a Mac laptop in the last 2+ years (I was corrected on that), to buy a new type of UI interaction device... there has to be a good reason for that. A problem that's being solved. What is it? Can anyone tell me?

Again NOT saying gestures are bad or that eventually things can't go that way but this seems like an abrupt and arbitrary transition on Apple's part designed for wow-factor more than making OS X a more efficient and useful experience compared to what it is today.

danrik wrote:

I'm curious - which features of Lion that we've heard about require you to have a multitouch based device in order to use them? From what I've seen, everything is either (a) an entirely new interaction pattern, or (b) has a mouse and/or keyboard way of accomplishing the same goal.

Maybe I'm not getting something but all the iPad-like app screens where you're swiping content on and off the screen would either require a Magic mouse (sucks) or one of the new trackpad gizmos. Can't see working that feature or others like it with a mouse or stylus, although the latter would be at least possible. As I said maybe Wacom has something big planned for this, seeing as how tons of Mac users work with tablets all day long but I guess we'll have to wait and see on that. Either way the availability or gesture devices or not, has no bearing on what problem these new features solve. And including the stupid Finder buttons, which are a sort of microcosm of this whole debate.

Wow this thread has gone to crap, I wish you multitouch guys would take it to another thread. On the flipside, I've learned that of all trackpads - people even hate on the Apple trackpad. Having been stuck with a trackpad on, oh, any other laptop out there, I find this quite surprising (and a bit funny hehe).

The first laptops to get the multi-touch trackpad was the Air in 2008, and all laptops went to the design by fall of that year, so its not 1.5 - 2 years, its fully 2.5 years now, and closer to 3 by the time Lion rolls around.

Laptops made up over 70% of all Macs sold last quarter. Two and a half years ago it was 60%. If you average that out, you're talking 65% of all Macs for 2.5 years.

Hrm. Let's see... I don't know the great big number these days but several years ago I remember the Mac user base was thought to be sneaking up on 50 million users and I've seen some anecdotal evidence that it's closer to 90 million right now. Regardless though, I only have one question: which number is bigger, the number of people who bought a Mac laptop in the last 2.5 years, or all other Mac users put together? Also, do you suppose a bunch of those laptop users also have OTHER macs that DON'T have the same gesture capabilities? Tell me again how wrong my math is.

And again, even if 100% of Mac users had gesture support built into their keyboards or whatever, none of that addresses the issue I mentioned above which is, tell me what problems making OS X look and behave more like the iPad solves, in a desktop environment. Help me understand what it is this will help me to do better, so that I don't look at this as another piece of Apple eye-candy, implemented mostly to sell upgrades. When Space and Expose were introduced at least at that time there was nothing close to an equivalent, but it didn't require new input devices and very definitely did solve some problems as far as managing your open applications and organizing open applications better and reducing screen clutter.

Help me out because so far based on Apple's demos, "I ain't pickin' up the vibe". I love my iPad (for the most part but even it has some annoying design flaws), but I see no reason why my Mac (for the time being) needs to function that way. And to reiterate from earlier comments, if they're going to do it, why make it a default? Why not make it an optional turn-on, turn-off feature (maybe it is and I missed something?) like Spaces?

Wow this thread has gone to crap, I wish you multitouch guys would take it to another thread. On the flipside, I've learned that of all trackpads - people even hate on the Apple trackpad. Having been stuck with a trackpad on, oh, any other laptop out there, I find this quite surprising (and a bit funny hehe).

Wow this thread has gone to crap, I wish you multitouch guys would take it to another thread. On the flipside, I've learned that of all trackpads - people even hate on the Apple trackpad. Having been stuck with a trackpad on, oh, any other laptop out there, I find this quite surprising (and a bit funny hehe).

And again, even if 100% of Mac users had gesture support built into their keyboards or whatever, none of that addresses the issue I mentioned above which is, tell me what problems making OS X look and behave more like the iPad solves, in a desktop environment.

It takes advantage of people's familiarity with the iPhone and iPad to make the features of their desktop computer more accessible and discoverable.

Also, what aspects of these new multitouch features aren't optional? Can't you just ignore them if you don't want them? You can still access Mission Control, Spaces, Exposé, Dashboard, etc. through keyboard shortcuts, mouse buttons, hot corners, etc. as far as I know.

It takes advantage of people's familiarity with the iPhone and iPad to make the features of their desktop computer more accessible and discoverable.

Also, what aspects of these new multitouch features aren't optional? Can't you just ignore them if you don't want them? You can still access Mission Control, Spaces, Exposé, Dashboard, etc. through keyboard shortcuts, mouse buttons, hot corners, etc. as far as I know.

On the first part I really question whether making OS X more iOS-like, makes the applications or features more accessible. I suppose you could argue that one but I don't see how invoking a shortcut and swiping, then clicking an icon is more accessible than having an icon in the Finder Sidebar, an Alias on the Desktop or an icon on the Dock. It's certainly not more discoverable because I believe you have to use keystroke to activate the app view (just like Expose or Spaces) and then you have to swipe through and scan rows of icons which is really no more efficient than scanning a Finder column of icons or a window of Icon View icons IMHO

On the second part, technically most features are options so ignoring it will certainly be a way to go for many folks but the bigger picture is, they're moving everything towards a gesture-based, big icon, swipe-happy UI and at some point OS X is going to look not very similar to what we have now. Whether that's good or bad is another debate for another thread.

And again, even if 100% of Mac users had gesture support built into their keyboards or whatever, none of that addresses the issue I mentioned above which is, tell me what problems making OS X look and behave more like the iPad solves, in a desktop environment.

It frees up real estate the scroll bars use. It allows the ever increasing number of laptop users to have more efficient access to GUI features like Expose and so forth. Right now you have to take your hands off the keyboard and press one of the buttons on the function key. And to use the function keys you have to press the fn button. So Lion actually does improve usability for people using a laptop which is becoming a larger and larger portion of their market.

Also note that it is optional. You can have scrollbars visible normally if you wish. You can use buttons for Expose, Spaces, etc. But for those using track pads it's there as an option as well.

About the only new UI element that is problematic is the tab widget and button bar widget. Even there treating it like a traditional 10.6 button works fine. It's just that the appearance is confusing. However even that could easily be fixed if Apple retains the current appearance with a bluish selection area that moves around. I don't think they will do this mind you. I think evidence is pretty clear that consistency isn't something Steve Jobs values much. Otherwise scroll bars between iTunes, iWork and the System would have been consistent in 10.5 and 10.6 when they were anything but.

the bigger picture is, they're moving everything towards a gesture-based, big icon, swipe-happy UI and at some point OS X is going to look not very similar to what we have now. Whether that's good or bad is another debate for another thread.

You're conflating two similar but distinctly different things - a direct touch multi-touch system and a gesture based system. And i think part of your resistance to the idea is based on this mistake. With a trackpad/gesture system there is no reason for "big icons" since you're not directly interacting with a hit box the same as you are on an iOS device. This is a fundamental distinction.

My original post which started this gestures tangent was an attempt to point this out. The Lion gestures are not designed around big icons. They're not a stepping stone to direct touch. UI paradigms that work well for direct touch do not necessarily work well for gestures and vice versa. Lion is very specifically designed for gestures.

The first laptops to get the multi-touch trackpad was the Air in 2008, and all laptops went to the design by fall of that year, so its not 1.5 - 2 years, its fully 2.5 years now, and closer to 3 by the time Lion rolls around.

Laptops made up over 70% of all Macs sold last quarter. Two and a half years ago it was 60%. If you average that out, you're talking 65% of all Macs for 2.5 years.

Hrm. Let's see... I don't know the great big number these days but several years ago I remember the Mac user base was thought to be sneaking up on 50 million users and I've seen some anecdotal evidence that it's closer to 90 million right now. Regardless though, I only have one question: which number is bigger, the number of people who bought a Mac laptop in the last 2.5 years, or all other Mac users put together? Tell me again how wrong my math is.

User base doesn't matter - Lion capable user base matters. Lion apparently requires x86-64 (Core2) which was introduced in FY '07, so that's all we need to look at for the installed base.

Without counting Magic Trackpad sales you have 42% of Lion capable computers multi-touch today. It will be 50% by the time Lion ships, so yes at that time the number of people who bought multi-touch laptops will be greater than all other Lion capable systems combined.

There are plenty of specialized input devices, from Wacom tablets to jod-dials for editing video to joysticks. The mouse isn't going to go away. Its just going to become one of those specialized input devices for people who need them.

Aren't big icons technically a usability improvement for any type of pointer input?

As a general rule, absolutely! But there are other variables to consider, I can for example think of these:

When showing the icons, are they overlaying some of the content and how much can we acceptably hide.

Some whitespace between the icons to minimize accidental errors is desirable. Also, some whitespace wil be a good thing to differentiate between and group icons. Larger icons generally leave a little less space.

The number of possible actions, very large icons will offset improvements since they can not all be close some have to be further away, thus medium sized icons might be about as usable as the same number of large sized icons since the distance travelled for the pointer device will be larger (slightly higher probability of error since error is among other things a percent of distance travelled, slightly more time to reach target).